PE 

\oi3 





SMITHSONIAN DEPOSIT 



rs ENGLISH DESTINED 

TO BECOME THE 

[VERBAL LANGUAGE 

OF THE WORLD? 



AN INAUGURAL DISSERTATION 

FOR OBTAINING 

THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 

r 

J IN THE 

UNIVERSITY OF GOTTINGEN 

* BY 

W. BEACKEBUSCH. 



i 



GOTTINGEN 

PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS BY W. FR. KAESTNER. 



'> 1868. 



TE»*73 
37 



The British Empire embraces an area of eight and a 
halt millions of square miles with a population of 220 mil- 
lions, while the United Slates of America contain three and 
a quarter millions of square miles and thirty -five millions 
of inhabitants, so that the sway of English-speaking men 
extends over nearly a quarter of the land portion of the 
globe, and nearly a quarter of the human race. The im- 
mense territories composing these two gigantic empires con- 
sist in Europe of the British Isles, Heligoland, Gibraltar 
and the Maltese group; Gambia, Sierra Leone, the Gold- 
Coast, the Cape, Natal, Kaffraria, Mauritius, Admirantes, 
the Seychelles, St. Helena and Ascension in Africa; and 
Hongkong , Aden, Hindoostan , Ceylon and parts "of further 
India in Asia; the whole of the continent of North-America, 
xMexico excepted, with the Islands belonging to it and the 
Bermudas, Honduras, Guiana, the Falkland Islands with 
a considerable portion of the Westindias in America; Au- 
stralia, Tasmania, New-Zealand, Auckland, the Norfolk Is- 
lands and Labuan in Oceania. 

The very array of names, not a few of them stauding 
for districts, in comparison whith which the largest coun- 
tries of Europe dwindle into insignificance, is amply suffi- 
cient to point out the importance of a race that owns pos- 
sessions so vast and subjects so numerous. 

England manufactures articles for the consumption of 
half the human race and sends them to their destination 

1* 



ill her own ships, bringing hack such raw material and 
food as her own markets require. Fler exports and her 
imports are worth each two hundred millions of Pounds a 
year, and eighty thousand vessels of twenty millions of 
tons burden enter and clear her harbours annually. 

She keeps an army as brave as ever fought a foe and 
numbering four hundred thousand men distributed over her 
various colonies and dependencies; and her navy, still the 
first in the world, does what a great Dutch admiral only 
boasted — she sweeps the sea. — 

Her sons are unsurpassed in physical and mental 
strength, in tenacious persistency of purpose — that secret 
of success in incorrupt morality and firm religious convic- 
tions. Her unrivalled internal communication, her easy 
connection with her own possessions, her constant inter- 
course with other nations • — by rail and road, steamboat 
and telegraph — keep up the conscious sense of nationality 
in her children, which is still strengthened by a great 
history, a great literature, in the past and in the present, 
and by a constitution , which as it has grown out of the 
wants of the people, not manufactured for it or forced upon 
it, has long served as an ideal for political reformers on 
the Continent, and makes the land an abode of freedom 
and of justice. 

In all these characteristics of a powerful and rising 
nation England is rivalled only by her overgrown daughter, 
the United States of America, who, in energy and education 
superior to the mothercountry, have already outstripped her 
in population and will perhaps at a not distant period di- 
stance her in some others also of her attributes of great- 
ness and prosperity. And, as the language of the two 
huge empires is the same, the sonsideration of that circum- . 
stance can only increase the sense of its importance. — j 



Yes, the English language is heard in every clime, in the 
manufactories and warehouses of Britain, the bustling cities 
in the east, the backwoods and the clearings in the West 
of North -America as well as in the icebound forts of its 
vast northern wildernesses; it resounds in the diggings of 
California and- Australia and on the sheepwalks of New- 
Zealand and the Cape; it reechoes from the West Indian 
sugar and the East Indian opium plantation; it is heard in 
the loghut of that pioneer of civilisation, the settler, on 
every rich and untilled soil that tempts the tiller's plough, 
it is heard in the dwelling of the missionary among a 
hundred tribes, it is heard in the crowded cities of con- 
tinental Europe, it breaks the silence of the highest Alpine 
or Himalaya peaks, it is heard on the ruins of every city 
that was renowned in Italy or Greece or Palestine, on the 
summit of the Great Pyramid, in the depths of the excava- 
tions of Niniveh, it rings along the wharves and quays of 
every seaport-lown within the Universe, and — more than 
that — it rings over every sea that carries keel of wood 
or iron, and from innumerable ocean-fortresses its greeting 
hail is answered by a hail in kindred speech. It was in 
English Chaucer and Shakespere wrote and Milton; and 
Gibbon and Macaulay and Carlyle are Englishmen. The 
English literature of the day contains the soundest mora- 
lity, imeorrupted by irreligious tendencies, it embodies the 
highest results of science in the most popular form at the 
lowest price to the greatest public; its daily press is unri- 
valled for the copiousness of the information it conveys, 
the sound sense of its leaders, the moderation of its lan- 
guage, the immensity of the circulation of its products and 
the minuteness of their price. 

Independently of this the English language is the 
easiest in the world; it contains so many German. French 



6 

and Latin words, that most European nations find a part 
of their own language reproduced in it and thus have the 
task of acquisition materially diminished. It has a strong 
tendency to become monosyllabic, and the ease of pro- 
nunciation grows, of course, as well as the ease of re- 
membrance in direct proportion to the shortness of the 
words ; it has but few inflections and those very simple, and its 
syntax is a very pattern and model of clearness and simplicity. 

What, then, can prevent its becoming sooner or later 
the universal language of humanity; in a time when inter 
r communication is so rapid, when the links that unite distant 
peoples are drawn so close, when time and space are 
annihilated by the great discoveries, that will ever cha- 
racterise this century as the epoch of inventions? Surely, 
the time is not far distant, when all the human race, united 
in strong brotherhood by unity of religion and of thought, 
will add to these encircling bonds the unity of speech, and 
that speech will be English!" 

Such are the powerful and striking arguments and 
inferences arrived at from incontestable facts, that may, 
with several others of less importance, be heard daily, that 
are brought forward not only by Englishmen and Ameri- 
cans, but by intelligent and thoughtful men of many na- 
tions and in the publications of many countries ; this is the 
strong and dazzling chain of reasoning, that I now intend 
— as far as is within my humble power — to examine 
link by link, confirming the statements that I find correct, 
and refuting the conclusions arrived at, where I deem 
them hasty or illogical. For this purpose I shall have to 
give a short sketch of the great historical languages of 
civilisation, that successively have held sway over a large 
portion of thinking humanity and give a short synopsis 
of the great languages now spoken. 



In doing so 1 cannot notice the conglomeration of territo- 
ries brought about by individual conquerors and dismem- 
bered after their death , nor of remote and distant empires 
in other continents, nor the incursions of barbarian hordes 
in civilised countries, whose speech, if their conquests were 
permanent, always was exchanged for that of the conque- 
red ; I shall therefore pass over in silence the great Baby- 
lonian, Assyrian, Persian and Medo-Persian Empires, though 
the latter, in particular, exceeded the Roman in extent, not 
speak of Tartars, Huns and Turks, nor mention Alexander, 
Charles the Great, Charles V and Napoleon, as the nations 
governed by their sceptre had nod the common bond of 
language, but of ruler only. — 

This survey of the languages that have either by the 
extent of the area of their geographical distribution or by 
the masterpieces of thought composed in them established 
a claim as the leading languages of the world ; will facili- 
tate our understanding the position, which the English lan- 
guage now occupies. 

The language of Greece, a parallel branch with that 
of Italy from the common indo-germanic trunk, of which 
the Celtic, Teutonic and Sclavonic tongues are more distant 
offshoots, spread from its original seats, which besides mo- 
dern Greece embraced a considerable part of what is now 
called Turkey, in the earliest times to Asia minor, later to 
the numerous colonies that dotted both shores of the 
Mediterranian, including Italy, Sicily and perhaps the South 
of France; while the great Alexander opened for it a bound- 
less vista of extension in the East, and though his stu- 
pendous realm was disintegrated after his early death, 
Greek made its way in Syria and to some extent in Egypt. 

In consequence of the mercantile connections of the 
Greeks and their superior genius, which conquered the 



8 

Roman conquerors, it not only continued to keep, but ex- 
tended its influence until the destruction of the Western 
Empire, led a precarious existence in the Eastern up to 
the taking of Constantinople by the Turks, when it became 
extinct as a civilised language, for a time at least, in its 
own hearth, while about the same period the study of its 
classic treasures revived in Italy, Germany, France, Hol- 
land, England. 

The Greek language richer in forms and structure, 
in power of combination and in variety of expression, 
blending strength and dignity, tenderness and subtility, gran- 
deur and sarcasm into one accord of glorious and harmo- 
nious sound, has among all the vicissitudes of fate kept 
its distinguishing characteristics intact and though three 
thousand years have not passed b^y, without effecting changes 
in pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar, to all intents 
and purposes Greek is a living language still though nar- 
rowed in its dimensions and importance to a mere shadow 
of its former self. The empire which the Greek language 
obtained was founded on intellectual, not material causes, 
not on the geographical extent of the Empire of the Greeks, 
but on its own euphonious beauty, strength and elegance, 
on the intellectual superiority of the nation. The most 
flourishing period of Greek literature and the widest disse- 
mination of the language are by no means contempora- 
neous; when Alexander conceived the idea of founding an 
Eastern Empire the heroes of Greek literature were de- 
parted never to return and in the first and second century 
of our era, when it obtanied its widest geographical di- 
mensions, the language had degenerated like the nation 
and its former spirit was as dead as that of the national 
independence. Without taking into consideration the po- 
werful influence it now exercises over ideas and thoughts. 



by being- a subject of study (or all persons enjoying the 
advantages of classical education , it enters on account of 
its plastic ease of form largely into the vocabularies of 
all civilised nations especially with regard to scientific 
terms. 

The language of the Romans, twin sister of the 
Greek, has played in the worlds history a part hardly 
less important than the Romans themselves. Though by 
no means coextensive with that empire, that for cen- 
turies embraced all Europe west and south of Danube 
and Rhine, the North Coast of Africa and the West 
of Asia, it became in course of time the spoken lan- 
guage of a very considerable part of its provinces and is 
the root of modern Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French 
and Wallachian (or Roumain\ And as were it not suf- 
ficient that East and West-Goths, Allemans, Francs, Lon- 
gobards and Burgundians should each and all adopt the 
speech of the nation they conquered, the Latin tongue 
achieved a greater conquest; she became a second time 
the mistress of the world by becoming the language of 
the Church. In consequence of this she was not only 
throughout Cliristendoom the language of the ritual, as she 
is now throughout that Church that still is called the Ro- 
/wrtw-Catholic ; but as m the troubled times of the early 
middle ages the clergy alone in Europe were wardens of 
science, of arts and of literature, she reigned for ages pa- 
ramount in all the scientific branches of the human intel- 
lect, which reign she extended to the „Schools u , when Uni- 
versities and other seats of learning became independent 
institutions; nor is her reign for original productions by 
the learned of Europe, though greatly on the wane, quite 
over even now. The importance of the Latin tongue and 
its extension were due to the dominion of the Latin race, 



10 

the literary treasures it contains and to its perspicuity, 
force and simplicity in sound, if not in structure. The 
influence which Latin has exercised and still exercises 
on the languages of all Europe, even those which are 
in no way derived from it, by being a principal ele- 
ment of liberal education, by offering in the Roman Law 
an ever necessary study for the jurist and the historian, 
by bequeathing us the standard authors of history and elo- 
quence, can never be too highly estimated, though Latin 
now be dead. The Latin of Antiquity died from decay, 
accelerated by the multifarious barbarian elements, the La- 
tin of the Middle ages , the language of the Pope and of 
the Schools was killed by Luther. 

Our attention is next engaged by the Arabian language, 
the offspring of the desert, coextensive or nearly so at one 
time with the Arabian Empire, spread by enthusiastic de- 
votees who, within a century after the Hedgira, the sword 
in one hand and the Koran in the other, overran the South 
of Asia and the North of Africa gaining a firm footing 
even in Europe. 

The sway of the Arabic language, at the period of its 
greatest extension, reached from the Ganges to Narbonne 
and it served as a vehicle for the boldest thought and the 
most careful observation in Mathematics, Medicine and 
Natural Science, that existed during the Middle-ages. The 
realm of the Arabs had long been splintered into numerous 
independent fragments, when their language was still do- 
minant in the disintegrated portions. In Europe, where 
the progress of their material power was checked by Charles 
Martell, the revival of classical studies and the hatred of 
a Christian population against the Moslemin opposed its 
influence. It is however by no means an extinct language, 
as it is the idiom of Arabia, Egypt. Mesopotamia, Barbary, 



11 

parts of Nubia, Persia, spoken by more than thirty millions 
of men; understood and paramount, wherever the faith of 
the Islam prevails; it has exercised a lasting influence on 
the language of Spain and forms a large ingredient of the 
„lingua,franca". Besides the sacred Koran it contains large 
treasures of poetry history and science in its literature. 

Looking next at the Italian language, with French and 
Spanish a direct descendant of the Latin, of which it is the 
purest representative, we find it bursting forth in a rich 
blossom of literary excellence first of the modern languages 
' of Europe, at the time when the maritime republics of 
Italy were the principal mediators of the trade with the 
East and the greatest emporiums of mercantile enterprise 
in the world; at the time when classical studies revived at 
its great seats of learning, and arts and sciences flourished 
through the length and breadth of the land. With the dis- 
covery of America, that destroyed its trade, — a punishment 
inflicted upon the country by an unapreciated son of Italy 
and of genius — and in consequence of the Reformation, 
preceded and accompanied as it was by a general revival 
of letters and development of the modern stage of European 
languages, which to a great extent destroyed its religious 
influence , the language of Italy lost ils importance with 
reference to the great states of Europe; and, whether the 
reconstruction of the „geographical idea" Italy into an en- 
tity be a real resurrection to political life, or only a gal- 
vanic spasm that assumes its semblance, it cannot be doubt- 
ful, that the enervated though polished speech of an effe- 
minate but accomplished nation, which requires a moral 
before it can hope for a lasting political regeneration, will 
never again exercise a powerful influence beyond its own 
borders. Italian is the typical language of progress for 
the fourteenth and fifteenth century; it is at present spoken 



12 

by about 25 millions of people in Italy and the islands ot 
the Mediterranean and enters very largely into the compo- 
sition of that dialect, which under the name of lingua franca 
is in use in many trading-places on the eastern coasts of 
that sea. It still retains throughout Europe its place as 
the language of music, for which by its striking prepon- 
derance of vowelsounds and consequent almost weakly eu- 
phony it is particulary qualified; it is not unfrequentiy stu- 
died as an elegant accomplishment. 

In turning over the pages of history we next find the 
Spanish Empire the largest and most powerful, and its lan- 
guage spreading in proportion. We cannot take account 
of the extent of the realm at the time of Charles V. , be- 
cause his being emperor of Germany, at the same time as 
monarch of the Spanish dominions and the Netherlands, 
was an accident that terminated with his abdication; but 
Philip his son commanded still an empire in which the 
sun never set, and if we leave out of consideration what 
little influence he had in England during the life of Alary, 
his wife, and lost after her deach, in the Netherlands, which 
he lost, his Italian and Sicilian possessions, in which the 
native idiom remained in the ascendant; he yet was po- 
werful on the coast of Africa; Peru and Mexico as well 
as the West-Indias were subject to his sway, and have 
with many other rich colonies remained appendages of the 
Spanish crown partly until the second decad in this cen- 
tury, partly till now. Although the Spanish language there- 
fore spread over and is still spoken in Mexico, Central 
and a great part of South - America , besides the Spanish 
colonies of Cuba, Portorico etc., the Canaries, Philippines 
and Ladrone- Islands, as well as in the mother country, 
although we may still higher estimate its former impor- 
tance, if we consider, that , if politically separated the Spa- 



13 

niards ami Portuguese speak dialects of the same tongue, 
which 300 years ago did uot present points of distinction 
sufficiently marked to class them as different languages, 
and if we consider, that at the same time the kingdom of 
Portugal embraced numerous settlements in Africa, East- 
India and Brazil besides many of the colonies it now pos- 
sesses, that its political and mercantile importance was in- 
ferior only to that of Spain, that its language is still spo- 
ken by ten millions of people, who cover geographically 
nearly the tenth part of the earths surface, although, 1 
repeat, forty millions of men still speak the Spanish lan- 
guage, and although then Spain was the mistress of the 
sea, and its influence preponderating over the whole 
of the newly discovered continent, how little influence 
has it exercised over civilised Europe! Though pos- 
sessing a sonorous, refined and expressive language, 
nearest akin in dignity to Latin , Spain , which had 
given birth to Martial, Lucan, Seneca and perhaps to 
Quinclilian, has since the modern development of her lan- 
guage not given us those treasures of science, eloquence 
and thought, that other nations have bestowed upon us, 
because in refusing the Reformation she refused the con- 
comitant freedom of thought and of expression; her im- 
mense riches, acquired without labour, destroyed the energy 
of the people, and worked the moral ruin of the nation 
which was necessarily followed by the physical ruin of the 
country, and still keeps the masses in a hopeless state of 
degradation. — For the latter half of the sixteenth and 
the first of the seventeenth century it was the most rising 
language in the world; then we see French rising into 
importance. 

Raised to an uuexampled state of splendour, unsub- 
staulial and unsatisfactory as it was, the French court at 



14 

the time of Louis XIV., in conjunction with a brilliant li- 
terature, dazzled the other courts of Europe and excited 
them to envious admiration and imitation; its speech ere 
long- became the symbol of good breeding and of elegance, 
the language of diplomacy, supplanted the vernacular among 
the higher, if not the better classes, in Germany, the north- 
ern states of Europe, and, to some extent, in England and 
in Italy, and in manifold distortions penetrated even to the 
lowest strata of society. As every action causes a reaction, 
opposition was not wanting, and purgers of the language 
endeavoured, in Germany more particularly, to resist French 
influence in which attempts they were powerfully seconded 
by the French Revolution, which annihilaled court and the 
upper ten thousands, and the rising into the highest place 
in Europe of German literature, and which was finally 
achieved when the overbearing ambition of the first Napo- 
leon awakened the spirit of nationality, that, once roused, 
hurled him into perdition and gave the „coup de grace" 
to that Gallomania, that had so long been rampant in most 
states of Europe. As the Greek language was the lan- 
guage of genius, Latin and Spanish that of conquerors, 
Arabian the tongue of religious enthusiasm, so French was 
the language of courts and of „polite society". Its impor- 
tance ceased with that of courts, that were supplanted by 
the reign of nations, and with that of hereditary aristo- 
cracy, the place of which is taken or disputed for by the 
power of genius and of capital. The French language 
had however, and still has, high claims to distinction by 
its crystalline clearness and precision, its systematic regu- 
larity of construction, and, generally speaking, the ease 
with which it is acquired by foreigners of all nations; yet 
it is in my opinion not fated to extend its influence, if it 
keeps its ground : because the military greatness of France 



was caused by her unity and the division of her neigh 
hours, and though France has not been divided, the other 
states have also become consolidated; because the French 
nation does not materially increase in number; because 
neither is French literature superior to others, nor the ma- 
terial resources of the Empire even equal; because the 
French are individually and collectively bad settlers, and 
have not been particularly successful with any of their 
colonies; because they are but indifferent sailors. French 
is at present still extensively taught in schools, though 
English is rising up as a formidable rival against it on 
the Continent, German in England; it still is the language 
of diplomacy, and reigns in ball-room, kitchen and in gam- 
bling-hells. — It is the idiom, besides part of the Russian 
aristocracy, of 45 millions of men iu France, Belgium 
Switzerland, Lower Canada, the Channel-Islands, the United 
States and the French colonies in Asia, Africa, America 
and Oceania. 

Turning next to the heart of Europe, we find a race 
possessed of all the qualities requisite to make it a leader 
among nations, with a speech of great power and beauty; 
and which, notwithstauding, on account of internal division 
and dissension , that often made her children the tools of 
crafty neighbours in working out their own interests, has 
hitertho not taken her due place in the council of nations; 
and whose language is only now beginning to be appreciated 
and studied abroad. — This German language is an in- 
dependant branch of the Caucasian stock; after passing 
through the various stages of Gothic, old and Middle-High- 
German and throwing off many vigorous shoots, of which 
the English is by far the most important and flourishing, 
one of its dialects, High -German, has superseded, as lan- 
guage of the educated and of literature, the Low -German, 



16 

in direct consequence of Luther's translation of the Bible 
into that dialect. It is at present spoken in Germany, whe- 
ther called North-, South or Austrian, the greater part of 
Switzerland, in Alsace, Baltic Russia, Pennsylvania, New 
York State, Maryland, Virginia and numerous western sta- 
tes of North Amerika, in parts of Upper Canada, the Lo- 
wer British provinces and Australia by more thau 50 mil- 
lions of people. Rich in vocabulary, in forms and power 
of combination, though guttural in sound, richer in the pos- 
session of a galaxy of names of such radiant brightness 
as adorn the heaven of German literature, this tongue of 
a nation unsurpassed by any in the highest sphere of hu- 
man intellect as well as in patient and useful industry, per- 
severance and bravery; of a nation whose mercantile ma- 
rine is even now inferior in Europe only to that of Great 
Britain and whose future importance in the destiny of na- 
tions it would require a bold man to circumcribe with limits, 
this language, I say, even if it should not become widely 
prevalent to the extermination of other tongues, will never 
be superseded by English or any other form of speech. 

It remains, to add a few words about the languages 
of those Empires, that attract our regard by the immensity 
of their area or the number of their inhabitans rather, than 
by the importance of the languages when dissociated from 
those accessories, as they present no great historical past 
nor flourishing literature in the present. The Russian do- 
minions, but little inferior to those of England, of more 
than eight millions of square -miles, the recent sale of the 
American possessions being compensated by recent con- 
quests in Central Asia — cover a sixth nearly of the laud 
that forms the surface of the globe. But this immense ter- 
ritory contains a population of less than 70 millions, and 
after deducting from this number the millions that speak 



17 

the Polish, Finnish, Livonian, Lithuanian, German, and 
Daco -Roman tongues in Europe, and the various forms 
of barbaric speech prevailing among the multifarious tribes 
that people the Asiatic portion of the Empire, we arrive at 
the result, that of this number about 45 millions speak the 
Russian language, if we consider its four leading dialects, 
Russian proper, Little Russian, White Russian and Rus- 
niack as modifications of the same language. Like all 
Sclavonic idioms the Russian excells most other forms of 
speech in Europe in copiousness of vocabulary, richness of 
form and in euphony. Many impartial thinkers have ar- 
rived at the conclusion that the Russian nation, with its 
virgin energy, its immense, though undeveloped resources, 
will at no distant period play a leading part, or the lea- 
ding part, in the world's history; and that consequently 
its language will be spread far beyond the confines that 
now enclose it, for which purpose it does not seem ill 
adapted, though not presenting a rich literature to the stu- 
dent, or an easy task to the learner. — 

The Chinese Empire with its area of about five and 
a half millions of square miles, and its population of at 
least 350 millions of inhabitants, is with all its dependen- 
cies peopled by tribes of the Mongolian race and an over- 
whelming majority of its inhabitants, certainly more than 
one third of all men on earth use the Chinese language, 
which belongs to that section of Mongolian tongues, that 
like the languages of Further India, Bhotan and Tibet, are 
nonosyllabic, uninflected and ideographic i. e. not expres- 
sing the sounds but the sense of the words ; and it conse- 
quently employs for each word a separate sign or combi- 
nation of signs. These signs are originally only of the 
number of about twohundred, but their combinations amount 
to more than thirty thousand, which, of course, are no 

2 



18 

more required for the intercourse of daily life, than the 
thirty or forty thousand words found in the dictionaries of 
several European languages. The acquisition of the written 
language is therefore so difficult, and such a work of time, 
that in that country, where education, such at it is, opens 
the road to every distinction, but few individuals are found 
who profess an entire mastery over it. This cause alone 
would prevent the spreading of the language out of the 
bounds of the Empire, and it is a difficulty that cannot be 
removed, because Chinese is one language only in its lite- 
rature and in its ideographic character; the spoken ton- 
gues exceed fifty in number all over the Empire and 
amount to nearly twenty in China proper. The differences 
we cannot say of dialact, are so great, that no native of 
one province can understand the speech of that of another, 
although they can converse by written characters; and it 
must be added besides, that even in the same locality a 
different tone of voice gives to the same combination of 
sounds, to what is phonetically the same word, the most 
widely different and incongruous meanings. If to these 
purely linguistic grounds be added the consideration of the 
peculiar character of the people, who have remained sta- 
tionary in their civilisation for thousands of years, who 
have invented printing-for ideologic wordsigns, the compass 
only to travel by land and gunpowder for fireworks , who 
in short have made great inventions and discoveries ages 
ago without being able to utilise them, like certain apes in 
Africa were said to build houses, imitating man, and then 
live on the outside of them, it will be conceded that the 
Chinese have but very little chance of extending their lan- 
guage by superseding the tongues of Europe. 

So we arrive at length at the subject of our enquiry, 
the English language. It is a branch of the Teutonic stock. 



19 

brought by the Anglo Saxons to its present location during 
the 5th and 6th century of our era; it enlirely superseded 
the Celtic speech that preceded it, as the Saxons extermi- 
nated or banished the entire population of the conquered 
districts. II underwent the changes that have befallen most 
languages of Europe, which however in this case were 
still increased by the constant inroads of the Norsemen 
(Danes) and by the Norman conquest. It would be an 
entirely erroneous supposition however, to consider English 
as a mixed language. The character of a language is 
determined by its grammar, not its dictionary; in the same 
manner as a building is called Gothic or Byzantinic, not 
after the material employed in its construction, but after 
the manner of arranging and joining those materials. And 
the grammar of the English language is entireley Saxon; 
of the words too, that are derived from foreign sources 
Latin particularly, partly by direct introduction and partly 
through the channels of the Norman and the modern French, 
a comparatively limited number only are required for the 
intercourse of common life; and those were even fewer in 
centuries gone by. After passing through the Anglo-Saxon, 
Old and Middle English periods we enter with Chaucer 
upon modern English. The different stages of the language 
are marked by loss of inflection and destruction of clear 
vocalisation, as well as by the admission of many foreign 
words. Modern English is characterised by the loss of 
cases for nouns and adjectives (except for the possessive 
case) the almost entire disappearance of different plural- 
terminations, which are supplanted by s, the reduction 
of flexional endings for the verb to ot in the (almost di- 
sused) second person singular of the present and past 
tenses, and the s in the third person singular of the pre- 
sent, and the absence of any form for infinitive, imperative 

2* 



20 

and subjunctive moods, which are identical with the first 
person of the present. The language in its present state 
is expressive and graphic in character, but its sounds are 
harsh and hissing, its accent is anomalous to a high degree 
and its orthography is a bewilderuug maze (as I shall more 
fully show below). It has had in Epic and Dramatic Poe- 
try, in History, Natural Philosophy and Metaphysics, in 
Divinity, Medicine and Proseworks of fiction, representatives, 
some of them unequalled by any writer ancient or modern, 
and many successfully enteriug the lists against rival na- 
tions. The time of Queen Ann is by English writer fre- 
quently represented as the culminating point — the classic 
period of English literature, but when we consider that 
her two greatest Authors, that Shakespere and Milton flou- 
rished considerably before that period, we shall perhaps 
be justified in assigning its acme to an earlier era. 

Having thus glanced over the history we turn to the 
extension of the English language. The British and Ame- 
rican Empires number more than 260 millions of inhabi- 
tants; but not the fourth part of them speak English. Tur- 
ning first to the British Empire we find that even its Eu- 
ropean possessions harbour numerous distinct idioms. Of 
ancient Celtic speech we find the three distinct branches 
Gaelic in the Highlands of Scotland, Welsh in Wales and 
Erse in Ireland spoken by fourhundred thousand, eight- 
hundred thousand and three millions respectively; and if 
we do not consider Lowland-Scotch as a separate language, 
as some authorities do, but as a dialect, we still find French 
spoken in the Channel Islands, (Frisian) German in Heli- 
goland, Spanish in Gibraltar. Italian and spoiled Arabic 
in the Maltese group. Deducting these from the thirty mil- 
lions of inhabitants which Britain in Europe numbers, we 
have 25 millions left for the English speaking population. 



21 

To the African possessions of which only the Cape , Natal, 
Mauritius and a few smaller islands can be called colonies, 
the rest being dependencies rather, after making due allo- 
wance for the Dutch settlers in South -Africa, the French 
in Mauritius, and the natives that speak their own lan- 
guage, everywhere; we can not assign more than 200,000 
people that speak English at the most liberal estimation. 
British America, in extent nearly one half of the Empire 
and about the size of Europe, contains, including the Bri- 
tish Westindias, little more than 5 millions of inhabitants, 
of which three and a half at most employ the tongue of 
England, as there ane nine hundred thousand French sett- 
lers in Lower Canada, that have preserved their native 
speech, German settlements in Upper Canada and some of 
the Lower Provinces, (Luueburg) while Celtic is heard in 
different localities , and there are besides the native Indians, 
though not numerous; in some of the West -Indian Isles 
Spanish is also still spoken. British Oceania , though at 
least 3 millions of square miles in extent, has an English- 
speaking population of 2 millions only. The native Au- 
stralians and the Maoris of New Zealand, even if added 
to the German settlers, are not sufficiently numerous to 
make a considerable reduction from this number. In the 
British dependencies in Asia, at last, with their million and 
a half of square miles and 185 millions of people, there 
are including Aden and Hongkong as well as the British 
Garrisons throughout Hindoostan and theTenasserim, 200,000 
English at most. Summing up then we find that in the 
British Empire the English language is spoken in 



22 

Europe by 25 millions 

Africa . . 200,000 

America . 3,500,000 

Oceania . . 2,000,000 

As ia . . 200,000 
Total 30,900,000 
About 31 millions, that is less than the seventh part 
of Queen Victoria's subjects speak her language. 

The United States have a population of 35 millions. 
But of these more than three millions, in the states pre- 
viously mentioned, speak German, a million in different 
localities use Celtic forms of speech, while the French in 
Louisiana, Missouri, Indiana, the Spaniards in Texas, Flo- 
rida and California and the independent Indians amount at 
least to another million, which leaves thirty millions for the 
English language. Adding this number to the total for the 
British Empire we arrive at the result that English is the 
speech of 61 millions of men; and on comparing this re- 
sult with the amounts obtained for other European nation 
— we omit China with its hundreds of millions, for rea- 
sons previously stated , from our consideration — we find 
that 

Russian |. . [45 millions of men 
(by about ) 

French „ 45 

Spanish „ 40 „ „ „ 

German „ 52 „ „ „ 

English „ 61 „ 

that the difference between the two lastnamed languages in 
particular and between English and any one of them in 
fact, is not sufficiently considerable to warrant the as- 
sumption that it could supersede any, much less all of them, 
unless indeed it be shown, that it possesses in a high de- 



23 

gree the power of absorbing- the speech of the nations, 
with which it is brought in contact. That such is, howe- 
ver, not the case; that it has not hitherto spread so ra- 
pidly as to let us arrive at the conclusion of its early fu- 
ture greatness from its lately past insignificance, may already 
have been gleaned from some of the previously made sta- 
tements ; and I will endeavour to justify the refusal of that 
opinion by a few additional facts. Except Italian, the ol- 
dest of modern languages in its present shape, the Eng- 
lish language has been developed to the highest degree of 
perfection, served as the vehicle for deepest thought and 
the most eloquent expression of every feeling that pervades 
the human mind, nearly three hundred years ago. Yet 
nearly the one half of Ireland's sons, notwithstanding that 
country has been subject to the English Grown ever since 
Henry I, well nigh seven centuries, have preserved the 
language of their fathers in spite of ages of systematic 
efforts to suppress it as well as their nationality in general, 
and even now they carry it rather across the ocean, than 
learn the hated accents of the Saxon. Little more than a 
century after, Wales was finally conquered and annexed 
to England by Edward I; and six centuries have not been 
able to make the English language supersede the Welsh 
with three quarters of a million of the aborigines. In the 
Highlands of Scotland Gaelic is spoken by fourhundred 
thousand clansmen, though Scotland has been under one 
crown with England since 1603, and though the influence 
of the English — or, what is nearly the same, the Low- 
land Scolch — had been brought to bear upon them for 
ages previously. But, more to the point still, the Chan- 
nel Islands, a possession of the British crown since the 
conquest , and the only remnant of the duchy of Normandy, 
preserve their native French intact, as do nine tenth of a 



24 

million of „habitants" in Lower Canada, subject to Eug- 
land since 1761, and surrounded by English settlers; as do 
the Dutch at the Gape, which became a British possession 
in 1806, after having been restored to the Dutch at the 
piece of Amiens; so do the French in Mauritius and the 
Spaniards in Gibraltar. 

That in America the increase of the language, like 
that of the population has been exceptional and unexampled 
finds its explanation in exceptional causes. These causes 
are of a political and social nature. The number of in- 
habitants amounted to about three millions at the Establish- 
ment of the Republic, and five millions and a half at the 
beginning of this century, all speaking English except a 
limited number of Dutch and French settlers, the former of 
whom have been unable to preserve their nationality in 
that whirlpool of nations, New York. In these figures no 
account is, I think, taken of the Indians within the terri- 
tory of the States. This number has increased sixfold 
during the last six decads, not so much by natural aug- 
mentation, as by immigration. Not only the Negroes, then 
slaves, (now, fortunately, a slave cannot breathe in the 
United States) whose descendants amount to nearly five 
millions, had to learn the speech of their masters, a con- 
stant tide of immigration also swelled the ranks of the in- 
habitants; and as during the first thirty years of our cen- 
tury this current mainly flowed from England (the number 
of emigrants from Great Britain amounted to 2,700,000 
from 1821 — 1860, of whom if we follow the analogy of 
the British Islands five sixths spoke English) the English 
had become so thoroughly established, that later, when 
Irish and German immigrants arrived in greater numbers, 
they found themselves so completely surrounded by the ru- 
ling element, so isolated, that a great number with the 



25 

loss of national consciousness forgot their mother tongue. 
The number of immigrants arriving in the United States 
during the fifteen years ending in 1858 amounts to upwards 
of 3,900,000, or 260,000 a year, nor has this sum de- 
creased since that period. A change however has taken 
place in this, that the immigrants belonging to the German 
nationality, which seems to be destined to play a great 
part in America, have been attracted towards each other, 
like the disintegrated portions of a liquid , and are now in 
a process of recombination that has already filled several of 
the states almost exclusively with members of their own race. 
Political causes, therefore, have given to the English 
language its preeminence and rapid spread in America and 
some of her colonies, not a natural fitness to supersede 
the speech of other men, nor the alleged easiness of its 
acquisition. For the English language is not an easy one 
to acquire by any means; both the written and the uttered 
speech opposing to the learner formidable obstacles to sur- 
mount. To substantiate this proposition I will not confine 
myself to pointing out the difficulties that English children 
experience in learning some of the sounds of their mother- 
tongue, nor to the mutilated speech of the Negroes, those 
children of a larger growth, and even of their descen- 
dants ; to the difficulties the foreigners of most nations ex- 
perience in acquiring the „English accent" or losing their 
own; but I will give a synopsis of the sounds and the or- 
thography of the English language, and point out its pe- 
culiarities as compared with the other leading languages of 
Europe, particularly with German, French and Italian, if 
the system be contrary to some preconceived notions and 
different, nay opposed to systems usually employed, it has, 
I think, the advantage of being perspicuous and based upon 
facts. 



26 

NB. In the following remarks the sounds are throu- 
ghout expressed by capitals, the written characters by small 
letters. The vowel sounds, expressed in capitals, are equi- 
valent to their German or Italian representatives unless 
otherwise specified. Other peculiarities will be explained 
below. — 



27 



Vowel -Sounds. 



Diphthongs 



Simple Vowels 



is. 

2L22 



< 2 
S 

SLcL 



O 



ft 



SSSg>£ 



o 






S £^0 



o 

a. 




Or 



QO 



CD 



+++ 


+ + 


++++++ + + 


++++++ 


+ + 



-| 1 (- l>S b* b* -| \~ 



28 

The cross in one of the first three columns indicates 
the non - occurrence of the sound in the language, whose 
name heads it, in the last that, occurring in neither, it is 
peculiar to English as for as the languages of civilisation 
are concerned. 

I have classified all those vowel sounds, which occur 
both short and long, as simple vowels; those which are 
long only, as diphthongs. The latter all are composed of 
two simple vowels in close juxta-position, so as to produce 
one syllable. The primary vowels call for no comment, 
except that short A (2) in many words, or perhaps it would 
be more correcet to say in many districts, is modified by 
a slight addition of an E sound. We find a corresponding 
sound dialectically in Germany, the Brunswick pronuncia- 
tion of the letter a exactly resembling it. — This pecu- 
liarity is not now so prevalent in England as formerly. The 
same sound, when preceded by a W (u. w. qu.) [see below] 
becomes modified in the opposite direction in words like: 
what, squab etc. This is called by some grammarians „the 
short broad A", evidently a contradiction. 

Secondary vowel sounds I have called those, that ori- 
ginally are composed of two of the primary vowels, but in 
which these two vowels are so blended and fused together — 
chemically combined, as it were that their component parts 
can in no way be distinguished by the ear. This absolute 
and entire amalgamation of the sounds into one I have in- 
dicated by enclosing the component elements in brackets. 
In such a manner E has originated from A + I and 
from A -f- U. I do not here refer to historical origin, in 
which the influence of consonants and the accent bear per- 
haps a greater share in the change than the modification 
by other vowels and assimilation, but of phonetic origin 
only, as relating to the organs of speech. Lastly, the ter- 



29 

tiary vowels, as 1 have called them, (11 and 12) appear 
to me to be the result of a similar fusion of the three pri- 
mary vowels into one neutral sound, equally remote from 
either, though local pronunciation, the influence of the fol- 
lowing* aud preceding consonants and the everchanging habit 
produce minute variations and differences in its utterance, 
that have caused such varieties to be treated as different 
and independant sounds. The neutral character of this 
sound is most strikingly brought under the observation of 
our senses, by noticing the different letters that are used 
to represent it, long in : murder, learn, bird, word, fern and 
short in the last syllables of: sailor, soldier, nature, nation, 
altar, Arthur, vengeance, martyr. By English grammarians 
it is generally called short U or or E, according to the 
character employed, an evident misnomer in more senses 
than one, for it is as truly long in: word or bird, as AU 
is in pound or fowl. It ought to be stated however, that 
there is a tendency among the best speaker to pronounce 
such words more in conformity whith the written character; 
but the actual pronunciation of the two classes of words 
I have given is, with the distinction of length and short- 
ness, identical A sub-division might be made between the 
accented and unaccented form of the short neutral vowel 
sound, but even there, I consider the sounds identical and 
the apparent difference explained by the evanescent character 
of the latter form. 

In the diphthongs, always long, I have indicated the 
component parts by prefixing to thera the simple sounds 
(according to my previous definition) and it remains only 
to be added, that whith the exception of 17 and 18 the 
first of the two vowelsounds is not only uttered first, but 
also predominates considerably over the latter; it is accen- 
ted as it were. 17 and 18 consist of the same elements 



30 

but in different proportions, for if in the other diphthongs 
the second (in 17 the first) sound forms about one fifth of 
the whole combination, in such words as new (18) the I 
amounts to one half. 19 may also be expressed by the 
same simple sounds inverted, and so indeed may 13, with 
this difference that in that case the latter would have to 
be classed with 17 and 18, as the E decidedly predominates. 

On referring now to the columns that indicate the non- 
occurrence of these sounds in German, French and Italian 
respectively we find that, whithout mentioning such slight 
shades of difference as have already been incidentally al- 
luded to, and which might easily be multiplied, the Eng- 
lish language possesses 19 vowelsounds, of which 8 (that 
is .421 of the whole) do not occur in French or Italian, 
5 (or .263) do not occur in German and are, as far as the 
great languages of Europe are concerned, altogether pecu- 
liar to it, while the average for the same three languages 
amounts to 7 sounds or .368, more than one third. The 
sound marked 19 occurs in Danish (aa) Swedish (a) and 
some German dialects, Bavarian for instance, 17 is found 
in Dutch (eeu) and 18 in Danish (io). 

Thurning next to the Consonant-Sounds, I have arran- 
ged them on a similar principle, though their number for- 
bade me to give a synopsis as easily comprehended at a 
single glance. 



31 



Consonant Sounds. 

1. Simple Consonants. 

Examples 

initial | final |Germ.| Fren. } ltal. 




Tuta! 7 | 6 J 4 (8pecul.) 

1 one 



II. Compoung Consonants. 



Composed of. 
2 consonants. \ 5 * 



f 1- 


SN 


snore 




+ 






2. 


SK 


skill 


task 


+ 






3. 


SM 


smite 




+ 






4. 


fS 




smiths 


+ 


+ 


+ 


5. 


dZ 




lathes 


+ 


+ 


+ 


6. 


DZ 




buds 


+ 


+ 




7. 


BZ 




tubs 


+ 


+ 


+ 


8. 


GZ 




flags 


+ 


+ 


+ 


9. 


ST 




wished 


+ 


+ 


+ 



1 

L 
1 

+ 
+ 
2 

+ 
+ 
+ 



32 



Compound Consonants (continued) 
Examples 



Compo- 
sed of 2 
conso- 
nants. 







initial. | 


Pinal 


Germ. 


Fren. 


Ital. 




10. 


GD 




flogged 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 


11. 


ND 




hand 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 


12. 


LD 




held 


+ 




+ 


+ ' 


13. 


BJ) 




robbed 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 


14. 


MD 




hemmed 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 


15. 


RFD 




hard 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 


16. 


ZD 




raised 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 


17. 


VD 




lived 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 


18. 


ZM 




chasm 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 


19. 


HW 


what 




+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 


20. 


(NG)f 




length 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 


21. 


Rf> 


through 




+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 


22. 


Df> 




breadth 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 


23. 


(NG)D 




longed 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 


24. 


(NG)Z 




lungs 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 


25. 


KW 


quake 




+ 


+ 




2 


26. 


Pf> 




depth 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 


(27. 


£M 




rhythm 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 


28. 


SL 


slave 




+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 


29. 


SW 


swallow 




+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 


30. 


LZ 




toils 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 


31. 


FS 




laughs 




+ 


+ 


2 


32. 


NT 




want 




+ 


+ 


2 


33. 


Nf> 




month 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 


34. 


Lf> 




health 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 


35. 


Rf> 




worth 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 


36. 


NZ 




cans 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 


37. 


NS 




dance 




+ 


+ 


2 


38. 


vz 




loves 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 


39. 


R n M 




harm 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 


40. 


R n L 




hurl 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 


41. 


R"F 




turf 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 


42. 


R n V 




carve 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 


43. 


R I][ Z 




hears 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 


44. 


R n S 




hearse 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 


45. 


R n B 




herb 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 








Total 


42 


41 


38 


35pecul. 



5 tvice 
3 once 



33 



Composed 
of 3 con- 
sonants. 



+ 



Compound Consonants (continued) 






Examples 


| initial. | final. 


Germ. 


Fren. 


Hal. 




( * 


NGKS! 


shanks 






+ 


1 


2. 


(NG)KT 




shanked 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 


3. 


DJD 




fledged 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 


4. ZMZ 




chasms 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 


5.PST 




lapsed 




+ 


+ 


2 


6.SKT 




asked 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 


7 NDZ 




lands 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 


8.LDZ 




holds 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 


9.R"DZ 




herds 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 


10.FTS 




clefts 




+ 


+ 1 2 


ll.SPS 


lisps 


+ 


+ 


t + 


12.NTS 


wants 




+ 


+ 2 


13.NST 


dauced 




+ 


+ 2 


U.DST 


lhadst 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 


15. LST 


jkillst 




+ 


+ 


2 


16.TST 


mightst 




+ 


+ 


2 


17.TST 


'hatched 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 


18.SKS 


tasks 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 


19.R n TS 


ihearts 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 


<20.LTS 


'quilts 
ifirst 




+ 


+ 


2 


21.R n ST 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 


22.R I, tS 


| hearths 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 


23.LZD 


i repulsed 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 


24.SPT 


lisped 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 


25.KST 


taxed 






+ 


1 


26.(XG){>S 


lengths 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 


27. MST 


jComest 




+ 


+ 


2 


28. R"NZ 


| earns 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 


29,R n ND 


'warned 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 


30.JNDJD 




sponged 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 


31.NJ>S 




months 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 


32.RMf> 




warmth 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 


33/DfS 




widths 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 


34.NDJ 




orange 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 


35.NTS 


wench 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 


36.ILKS 


hulks 




+ 


+ 


2 


37. ! R"KS 


works 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 


38.L|>S 


{healths 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 


(39.;MPS 


jlimps 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 


belo 


ngs to t 


le ne 


xt class. 











34 



Compound Consonants (continued) 









Examples 












initial. final. 


Germ. 


Freo. 


Ilal.| 




[40. R"DJ 




forge 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 




41. 


LDJ 




bulge 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 




42. 


R n BZ 




herbs 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ ' 




43. 


R n PS 




harps 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 




44. 


R n MZ 




storms 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 




45. 


R n KT 




worked 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 




46. 


R n LD 




world 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 


Compo- 


47. 


PJ>S 




depths 
delves 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 


sed of 3 J 


48. 


LVZ 




+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 


conso- "(49. 


LMZ 




helms 




+ 


+ 


2 


nants. 


50. 


R n VD 




carved 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 




51. 


RnVZ 




carves 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 




52. 


RnFS 




serfs 




+ 


+ 


2 




53. 


R n MD 




warmed 


£ 


+ 


+ 


+ 




54.|R n LZ 
55.R n PT 




hurls 


+ 


+ 


+ 






harped 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 




56JSKR 


scribe 




•+ 






1 




57. SPR 


sprat 






+ 




t 




58. 


SKW 


squall 




+ 


+ 




2 




r i. 


R"NST 




learnst 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 




2. 


R n TST 




searched 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 




3.iR n DJD 




urged 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 




4.RSTS 




bursts 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 


< 


5J.LDJD 




bulged 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 




6.NTST 




crunched 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 




7.SKST 




askest 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 




8.LPST 




helpst 


+ 


+ 


+ 


+ 




{ 9JNTST 




pant'st • 




+ 


+ 


2 










Total 


52 


64 


64 


50 pecul. 



13 twice 
4 once. 



In this synopsis of the consonant sounds I have indi- 
cated the occurrence of a sound as initial or final only, 
or in both positions by the examples added; every other 
case is, of course, noticed among the compound sounds. — 
Like the vowel-sounds I have divided the consonants into 



35 

simple and compound, classing under the former all those 
that the ear can not dissect into their component parts. 
Of those „which I have called primary consonants" first 
stand the semivowels to which I giwe this name, not be- 
cause, the same letters (w, y) with two of them serve some- 
times to express a vowel, sometimes a consonant; but be- 
cause their sounds really have a close affinity for vowels. 
W closely resembles a short U, and when followed by h, 
the H precedes it in pronunciation. It has no equivalent in 
the great European languages. Y is so nearly akin to the 
German J and peculiar sounds in French icaillou) and Ita- 
lian (signor) that I have not treated it as a peculiar letter 
R 11 is a soft, guttural R, which at the close of a word so 
strongly resembles long A, that, were rhymes judged by 
the ear only such a combination as: „Jeremiah, blow the 
fire" would cease to be ridiculous. To draw a broad 
distinction R n , a guttural, is used after the vowel of the 
syllable of which it forms part, R, a lingual, classed, among 
the liquids, precedes it. The liquids call for no remark. Among 
the spirants S represents the sharp, Z the soft hissing sound 
which the letters s and z respectively express in French 
also, and for both of which the German and Italian lan- 
guage employs one sign-s-only. V is the same in French 
and Italian. J is a rare sound in English, only occurring 
between two vowels, represented in French by g before i 
and e. S is expressed by sch in German and ch in French ; 
perhaps it belongs to the secondary consonants, of which 
I now, as the mutes may be passed over in silence, shall 
say a few words. They are usually called aspirates, and 
considered as having been produced by the addition of the 
sound H to S, B or P, T and D respectively, while (Ng) is 
treated as a compound letter. This is Grimms view. Mo- 
dern English grammarians on the other hand (Latham e. g.) 

3* 



36 

treat them as simple sounds, such as for the sake of di- 
stinction I have called primary. I venture to suggest a theory 
for their phonetic origin, similar to that which I have 
brought forward with regard to secondary and tertiary 
vowels; namely, that they have been produced by to 
close an amalgamation of their component parts (whether 
h is one of them or not) that a really new sound is the 
result , differing in all its characteristics from either of its 
elements. I am confirmed in my opinion by the widely 
diverging orthography of those sounds in the different lan- 
guages in which they occur. (I have used a new charac- 
ter for the one, the Anglo-Saxon ones for two others, and 
bracketed what are generally considered the component 
parts of the fourth while F required no new sign.) }) in: 
thin , through (not existing in French, German or Italian) 
corresponds to the Greek #, the Spanish z and c before i 
and e; the Polish c z, and the Hungarian cs ; while $ with 
its close relation to D, that children and foreigners so often 
substitute for it, is expressed both in Danish and Dutch, 
where its occurrence is frequent enough, by d (between two 
vowels). Ng is in most languages written ng and consi- 
dered to be a compound of the vowels those letters repre- 
sent; this view is however erroueous, as N is produced 
by contact of the tongue with the teeth or upper gum, 
while (NG) in long is entirely originated by palate and throat. 
This sound was expressed in Greek by the letter y before 
another y. x. %. §. not by double r, as frequently stated, 
the second letter keeping its own sound. In Greek, Ger- 
man or Italian it does not occur final as it does in English. 
Besides noticing that of the double consonants DJ is 
the Italian g before E and I and that this sound does not 
occur in French or German , that T& also of common oc- 
currence in Italian (ci) and written in German tsch, is not 



37 

to be found in French either, there remains little to 
be said, after the remarks made on the Simple Consonants* 
about the compound sounds, whether formed by double, 
treble or quadruple combination, except that I might have 
increased the list materially by adding such endings as: 
tie, ntle, rtle, die, cle, sle, zle, stle, mble, ndle, ere, gle, 
fle, ble etc., which although monosyllabic in theory, in 
reality always take the short neutral vowel sound 12 (v. s.) 
not indeed after the last consonant but before it. I have 
also excluded several treble and quadruple consonant com- 
binations such as shown in the words heldst, heardst, that 
belong to the second person singular of the verb, a form 
now rarely used except in religions addresses and in poetry, 
and then the words are pronounced as dissyllables: foundest, 
holdest; nor have I noticed some rare consonant combi- 
nations used only in scientific terms derived from classic 
languages, as FT (initial), in phtisis SKL etc. I have 
taken no notice of consonant combinations that are found 
only between two vowels, because their sound is necessarily 
divided, and lastly I have left out all those consonant 
combinations that are of not unfrequent occurrence in other 
languages. Ast the first glance it might appear, as if many 
of the compount? consonant sounds were of common occur- 
rence, in German particularly, but closer examination con- 
vinces us that our eye is mislead by the orthography. The 
German words: tanz, Gans, land's, Kant's are pronounced 
with the same ending sound TS, while the four English 
words: lands, pans, pants, pence have four distinctly dif- 
ferent sounds DZ, Z, TS and S respectively as termi- 
nation. * 

On summarising now the results obtained by a com- 
parison of the English consonant sounds with those of the 
French German and Italian languages we find that of the 



38 

simple consonants 1, of the double 4 of the treble and 
quadruple 3 occur only in two of these languages, 7 double 
and 13 treble combinations are wanting in 2 of them, and 
that 4 single 37 double and 50 treble and quadruple com- 
binations, in the English language, in as far as these ton- 
gues are concerned, are altogether peculiar to it, which 
with the previously mentioned 5 vowels gives a total of 96 
altogether peculiar to the English language 106 not existing 
in German, 116 wanting in Italian and 119 in French. 
These results are sufficiently startling to make comment 
superfluous, but it remains still to be remarked that in ad- 
dition many of the consonants and some of the combinations, 
that are found in other languages do not in them occur 
both as initials and finals, as they do in English, that some 
of the consonant- combinations between two vowels, such 
as finger, where the last syllable begins with a distinct G 
sound in addition to (Ng) are peculiar to English, and 
lastly, that there is a very great prevalence of consonants 
sounds, simple and compound, after the vowel, which are 
not met with in that position elsewhere. 

Another difficulty, not equal certainly to that of the 
sounds, yet perplexing enough at times, not only to the 
foreigner or ignorant native, but even to an educated Eng- 
lishman, is the accentuation. — Generally speaking, in Ger- 
man the accent rests on the stem, in Italian it is governed 
by rhythmical considerations, in French equally divided 
over all the syllables of a word, in English it is drawn 
back to the beginning. Originally the same rule obtained 
in English as in German, and does so still with regard to 
Saxon words; but those words do not increase in number, 
and in all the elements adopted from foreign tongues, 
the accent, if employed correctly at first, soon becomes 
corrupted, while the words in which that process has not 



39 

yet taken place create additional confusion. The old maxim, 
that the tone cannot rest further back from the end of the 
word than the antepenultimate, seems to be set utterly at 
defiance and orthoepical treatises contain long arrays of 
words accented on the last syllable but three and even on 
the last but four. This seeming anomaly is explained by 
the rapid utterance with which the syllables following are 
blurred over as it were, and which causes them to occupy 
in being pronounced the same time only, that is usually 
employed for two syllables; or in other cases there is a 
secondary accent nearer the end of the word. In the 
following words for instance, that have the accent on the 
last syllable but three, the vowel sound of the antepenulti- 
mate is almost silent: January, literary, exemplary, cu- 
riously, accuracy, particularise, corroborative, contemporary r , 
while in characterise and similar words the penultimate is 
shortened. Of polysyllables accented on the first some 
shorten the vowel sounds of two of their syllables to such 
an extent, as to be practically reduced to trissyllables ; such 
are: costumarily, dilatoriness , solitarily, necessarily, in 
which the vowels of the second and fourth syllables are 
so treated; while others have a secondary accent on the 
penultimate as: masticatory, lachrymatory, laboratory etc. 
This explains the difficulty but does not diminish it, while 
the discrepancy of the highest authorities on the accent of 
a considerable number of words of this nature serves 
greatly to augment it. Of words of doubtful accentuation 
the most important are verbs and verbal derivatives, be- 
cause the tendency of the English language to draw the 
accent back to the beginning of a word is counteracted to 
some extent by the fundamental rule that verbs have the 
accent at the end (the root-syllable in Saxon being either 
the ultimate or the penultimate) and this double action has 



40 

caused a doubtful condition with many verbs derived from 
classical sources. The accentuation of the following among 
numerous others is doubtful: confiscate, contemplate, ener- 
vate , extirpate, acceptable, commendable, disputable. The 
peculiarity of English accentuation exercises an especially 
unfavourable influence on a very great number of words 
that are either borrowed from the Latin or Greek un- 
changed and also on still greater number of derivatives 
from such words. The impression produced upon a conti- 
nental , unaccustomed to hear English spoken, when hearing 
such words as sdnator, orator , mdnument , history, oases, 
plethora, antmone etc., with the indistinct and hurried pro- 
nuncation of the final syllable is, that they are utterly 
strange to him, although he may write the word with almost 
the same letters in his native tongue. I cannot conclude 
my remarks on accent, without alluding to that most impor- 
tant class of words, containing more than one hundred, 
which , although composed of ablolutely the same sounds, 
become different parts of speech by different accentuation, 
being verbs, if accented on the ultimate, nouns or adjectives 
if not. I can only instance a few examples: absent (adject;) 
absent (verb) produce (noun) produce (verb) consort (noun) 
consort (verb. 

Having thus at some length treated of the difficulties 
of an organic nature, that oppose the acquisition of the 
language even if constantly conversing with natives, or 
having the best masters, I must now turn to the artificial 
difficulties retarding and often preventing success in ob- 
taining a mastership over the language without those auxi- 
liaries. I allude to the extremely irregular, intricate and 
capricious orthography. I believe I am within the mark in 
saying, there is not in England, in the upper and middle 
classes , one person in a hundred , who can spell correctly 



41 

all the words of his own language ; when I say , all the 
words, I mean all the words in daily use. Children at 
school spend a sonsiderable portion of their time in ^ear- 
ning spellings" and remain most lamentably insufficient, 
and foreigners, who have acquired the language from books 
often surpass educated Englishmen, in what is justly con- 
sidered an accomplishment. In most grammars, whether 
written for foreigners or natives, the reader is informed 
that the letter a has 3, 4 or 5 sounds,' the letter 
e 3 sounds etc.; but that arrangement does not convey a 
just notion of the difficulties to be encountered, and I shall 
therefore give a comprehensive view of the different ways 
in which the simple and compound sounds enumerated in 
the previously given synopsis are expressed by letters. 

Refering first to the vowel sounds and taking them in 
the same order we find that these sounds are expressed in 
the following manner: 

NB. I have taken no notice of any consonants here, 
though some of them exercise a great influence e. g. r 
and 1. 



Sounds 



Letters by which expressed 
with instances. 



A long a, father; aw, law; au launch; aa, bazaar; 

e, clerk 
A short a, hat; ai, plait 
I long i, invalid; ee, thee; ea, thea; *e-e here; 

ie believe ; eo , people ; ey , key ; uoi, tur- 

quois; oe, sub poena; ae, aphaeresis ; e, 

me; ei, receive. 
I short i, hit; ui, biscuit; u, busy; y, hymn; o, 

women; ey attorney; ie, cronies 
U long o, do; oo, boon; ou group; o-e, lose; wo, 

two ; oe , shoe 
U short u, pull; ou, could; oo, good 

*) This indicates the followiug of a silent e in the next syllable. 



M.of 
ways. 



12 

7 

6 
3 



42 



Sounds. 



Letters which express them and 
instances 



Jtoof 
ways. 



E long 



E short 

long 

short 
Neutral 
Vowel 

(AJU; 

long. 

Neutral 

Vowel 

(AJU) 

short. 

EA 

Al 

AU 
01 



IU 11 
AO 



a, vague ; cy obey ; ai, again ; ay, clay ; ei, 

eight; ea, great; a-e, state; ao, gaol; 

au, gauge 
e, hen; ai, said; ea, bread; eo, leopard; 

a, Thames; ay, says; ue, guest, 
o-e, note; oa, boat; oe, sloe; ow, know; 

ou, though, 
o, not. 
u, murder; e, fern; ea, learn; i, bird; o, 

word; ou scourge 
accented: u, but; o, dove; ou, rough. 

unaccented: a, altar; e, alter; i, cousin; o, 
actor; u, sulphur; oa, cupboard; a-e, ad- 
vantage; i-e, subtile; eo, surgeon: ei, 
sovereign; our, parlour etc. 

a-e, bare; ea; bear; e, there; ai, hair; ei 
heir 

i, title; ai, aisle; ie, die; y, ally; uy, buy; 
oi, choir; ui guile 

ou, house; ow, owl 

oi, foil; oy, boy; uoy, buoy 

u, thruth; u-e, use; ou, through; ue, true; 
eau, beauty; oeu, manoeuvre; ui, suit; 
eu, rheumatism. 

ew, new; iew, view; ieu, lieu. 

oa, broad; aw, raw; au haul; ou, bought; 
and a (before r et e) war, fall. 



14 

5 

7 
2 
3 



19. 



109 



Thus we learn that the 19 vowel -sounds can be ex- 
pressed by 109 different letters, or combinations of letters, 
in which number no account is taken of silent letters (to 
any extent), nor of any consonants whatever, as both con- 
sonants and silent letters will be spoken of presently. This 
gives an average of 5.736 methods of expressing each vowel 
sound, if long and short vowels are treated as altogether di- 
stinct; but if they are considered as really one sound, the 



43 



average amounts to 9.083 and to 12.83 for the six simple 
vowel-sounds alone. 

In turning next to the consonants, I have taken no 
notice of their gemination, which exists in most languages 
and which where it has any effect, influences the quantity 
of the preceding consonant rather. (This remark applies 
also to the table of consomnt-sounds.) We find then, that 
L, M, K, P, B, D, G, H, W are never expressed by any 
but their proper letters, that (Ng) is written ng final only, 
as the combination ng within the word reads (Ng) g. e. g- 
longer. Ng, R 11 , {), D, S, J though simple sounds, have no 
separate simple signs to express them; R and R n , are ex- 
pressed by the same letter r, a circumstance of not much 
importance, if it be taken into consideration that the pro- 
nunciation of that letter as a guttural or a lingual is to a 
great extent, not only in England, but elsewhere also, a 
matter of individual habit of fashion, and of local custom. 
f and £ also are expressed by the same combination; and 
the learner finds it difficult to remember the due sound of 



I is expressed by z and s before 
, sheep; su, sure; ti, nation; ci, 



th in different words. 
u, and S is written : s 
social. 

The following consonantsounds are expressed in 
more ways than one: 



S 
Z 
F 
T 

K 

Y 

* 

DJ 



s, sat; c, cell 
z, zeal; s, lease 

f, fat; ph, philosophy; gji, enough 
t, trot; d, fetched: th, Thames 

jk, king; c, cat; ck, cock; qu, casque 
(ch, christian. 
y, yet; i, million 

g, gem; j, jewel; dg, fudge. 



(2) 

(4) 



*) With the comhinations of consonants I have noticed anomalous ways 
of spelling a sound, even if they be the only ones in use. The intervention 
of the silent e in writing is not noticed. 



44 



SK sk , skull ; sc, scull j sch, school 

dZ ths, lathes 

GZ gs. flags 

ST shd, wished. 

ZD zd, buzzed, sd, raised 

ZM sm. chasm 

HW wh, what 

(NG)Z ngs, lungs 

(NG)KT nkd, thanked 

KW qu, quaker 

LZ Is, toils 

FS ghs, laughs; fs, chiefs; phs, triumphs 

NZ ns cans 

VZ vs loves 

DJD gd, engaged; dgd, dodged 

TST chd, reached; tchd, fetched 

SKS sks, tasks; ques, casques 

ZMZ sins, chasms 

NST nst, canst; ncd, danced 

NDZ J LDZ, RDZ, RBZ, LMZ, etc. have s lislhiaT 









Sounds 


Letters 


Instance. 


LZD 


lsd: 


repulsed ; 


SPT 


spd: 


liped ; 


KST 


xd: 


laxed 


NDJD 


ngd: 


sponged 


NTS 


nch: 


wench 


NDJ 


nge: 


orange 


RDJ 


rge: 


urge 


LDG; 


lge: 


bulge 


RKT 


rkd: 


worked 


NTST 


nchd: 


crunched 


RTST 


rchd : 


searched 


RDGD 


rgd: 


urged 


LDGD 


lgd: 


bulged. 



Before summing up I ought to add the remark, that 
the letters c, q, j, x, occurring in the English Alphabet are 
redundant, as c is either an equivalent of K as in cock, or 
of S as in cell or in conjunction with h expresses someti- 
mes the sound TS as church, sometimes a K, as Christ; 
q is alirays K, j DJ, and x, KS. In the compound conso- 



45 

iiants 1 have not repeated any irregularities resulting of 
necessity from an anomalous way of expressing the simple 
consonant, nor in those consisting of combinations of three 
and four consonants, any irregularity that is the necessary 
result Of a previous irregularity in the method of expressing 
the compounds consisting of two consonants. — 
We find then that 



(simple consonants are 
j correctly represented by 
are unrepresented 
except by combination , 
two of which have 4 super- 
fluous combinations . . 
are expressed by . . . 



And there are superfluous 



9 signs 



4 

19 

1 

4 



23 



Average: 2 nearly. 



13 



This ratio, 1 think, would have remained about unal- 
tered, if all the compound consonant sounds had been taken 
in, the majority of which are omited in the list of sounds. 
Many of the compound sounds written down, are only re- 
presentad by one group of letters. It has to be well ob- 
served, that this group always forms an anomalous way of 
expressing the sounds. 

From the list of sounds we arrive at the remark that 
the English language exceeds others in the abundance of 
its (final) consonant combinations, while the averages we 
have drawn, show that the vowels have by far the most 
numerous deviations in their orthography. 

Mention remains still to be made of the silent letters 
as a numerous and important part of the written language. 
Like dried up riverbeds they show, where streams of living 
water once were wont to flow; most important they are for 
the study of etymology, as a means of distinction, between 



46 

different words of equal sound, so common in English , but 
a sad stumbling block to the illiterate and the student. 

Many of the vowel combinations, which I have pre- 
viously enumerated, contain examples of silent letters such 
as o in people; e and u are frequently silent but in that 
case generally affect the immediately preceding consonant 
as guide, guest, where the sound of G is by those means 
expressed, though other words have the same sound even 
before E and I without the u, as get girdle; while scourge, 
surgeon intimate the J sound by the addition of e, the c 
(S) is similarly affected by e, as truce. Such combinations 
as gu, ge, ce, though not consisting-of consonant-signs might 
perhaps very properly be classed under the consonants, as 
they are combinations for producing a single consonant sound. 
In the same manner the silent e at the end of words affects 
the preceding vowel, lengthens it in and changes it into 
a diphthong in other cases, a — e = EA fate; i — e = Al, 
life; o -f- e = U, move; u -f- e = IU, use. 

Table of silent consonants. 

1 in could, calf, chalk, alms etc. 

n „ autumn, hymn, kiln etc. 

s „ aisle, viscount, etc. 

p „ psalm, emty, raspberry (before S. T. B.) 

b „ climb, doubt, (after M before T.) 

k „ knave, knock (before N.) 

g „ gnat j sing (before N.) 

h „ heir, hour, rhyme, Sarah. 

w „ wrap, sword (before R.) 

c „ scent, indict (before T and after S. 

ch „ drachm, yacht. 

gh„ high, through, ought. 

All these silent letters, ch alone excepted, are of very 
common occurrence, gh perhaps most so. 



47 

I have thus pointed out some of the leading difficulties 
in the spoken and wrilfen language of England, which will 
always militate strongly against its easy acquisition and 
rapid extension, especially as the anomalies pointed out are 
by no means of rare occurrence, but in many instances 
form the rule. I have drawn attention to the qualitatively 
and quantitatively equally important irregularities in the vo- 
wel and consonant sounds, the peculiarities of the accen- 
tuation and the many and strangely inconsistent methods 
of expressing these sounds. We arrive then at the conclu- 
sion that the English language does not owe the undoubted 
preeminence, which it at present enjoys among the languages 
of the world, and the numerical superiority of the people 
that employ it, either to a natural tendency to supplant other 
civilised languages with which it comes in contact, or to its 
alleged easiness and simplicity; nay, we might even say, 
and not without cause, that the greater development it has 
obtained in the simplification of its grammar is the commen- 
cement of its dissolution, the beginning of the end ; and that 
its extraordinary tendency to degenerate into slang of every 
kind is the foreshadowing of its approaching dismemberment. 
We find the slang of the School and the slang of the Turf, 
slang military and slang naval, slang mercantile and manu- 
facturing, and last but not least the slang of the lower or- 
ders in general and of the dangerous classes in particular. 
I might speek of the slang of the Yankee with its nume- 
rous subdivisions, perhaps corresponding in kind to, but 
individually differing from, the slang of Great Britain, the 
slang of the Indian, the Australian, the settler on the Cape. 

I might advert to the great want of education among 
the lower classes, when even now nearly 40 per cent, of 
the adult population are unable to write and 25 to read, 
as a material obstacle to the spread of the language, as 



48 

emigrants here belong as a rule to the lowest stratum of 
society, and might reply, if reminded of the great improve- 
ment that in late years have been effected in that particu- 
lar, that at present there is but little prospect of making 
education compulsory and that, unless that be done, it can 
never become general, and just those portions of the com- 
munity will be bereft of its blessings, that most require them. 
But passing over those subjects with the most cursory no- 
tice, I must say a few words on the probable aspect ot the 
British and American Empires in the future and the pro- 
gressiva political, commercial and social importance of those 
nations. 

The English are the masters of the Sea. True — but so 
have others been before them, and so may others be after 
them. The men of Tyre and Sidon who „went down to 
the sea in ships" and their still more powerful colonists, 
the Carthaginians, have been the masters of the Sea; yet 
their language is lost utterly and irrevocably. The Vikings 
or Norsemen were very kings of the ocean, as their name 
implies, but where is now their speech? The Italian Re- 
publics, the Hanse towns, the Spaniards and the Dutch have 
successively been the rulers of the main, without powerfully 
affecting the languages of Europe; Britannia rules the wa- 
ves to day, but will her language exercise a greater in- 
fluence, and will she rule them tomorrow? 



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